The most thought-provoking passages regarding inheritance in the final section of the text juxtaposed the tangible inheritance Corinne rejected with the intangible inheritance she reluctantly embraced.
Shortly after Corinne covertly returns Oswald’s ring and is nursed back to health by Count d’Erfeuil, we are told that “She felt like someone condemned to death” (347). She asks the Count to tell Lucile’s mother that she will not accept a significant inheritance that became Lady Edgermond’s bargaining chip in bringing about Oswald’s marriage to Lucile. Although she is independently wealthy, Corinne rejects this windfall as a rejection of the source, Lady Edgermnd, and a condemnation of the way the money has been used as a wedge between Oswald and her.
Later in the same book, in a woods on the banks of the Arno en route to Florence, Corinne offers the following prayer: “Oh God, why have you chosen me to bear this pain? May not I, like your divine son, also ask that this cup should pass from me?” (352). This allusion figures Corinne as a female Christ figure, accepting the spiritual penalty for all women who sacrifice their gifts and ambitions for the sake of love. Jesus prays the evening before his crucifixion at the Mount of Olives. While his omniscience fully recognizes the totality of the suffering to come, his human nature also begs for any alternative to the Father’s plan of requiring his son to bear the inheritance of sin for all people. Here Corinne is cognizant of the anguish and suffering that will compose the remainder of her life, but is reluctantly accepting of her role. I can’t help but wonder if de Stael here takes on the role of almighty God, crucifying her blameless heroine as an atonement for the genius sacrificed by generations of domesticated women. Corinne does not acknowledge a concrete God, but she certainly acknowledges the power of the author and the weight of allusion. Here she is praying to de Stael herself, asking, as did Christ, if any alternative might exist before this path of pain begins in earnest. In this context, Corinne’s behavior in the final sections of the novel might be re-read as a sort of feminine Messiah rather than the self-indulgent emo queen she might otherwise seem to the contemporary reader. Corinne has the power to escape the hold of her affection for Oswald, but accepts that misery because that is the service demanded by her author for a cause beyond self.
This reading might be supported by the conversation Corinne has with Prince Castel-Forte near the conclusion of the novel, when he outlines in stark detail the sins men commit against women:
“The wrong you may do a woman may not hurt you in the eyes of the world. The fragile idols adored today may be smashed tomorrow without being defended by anyone, and it is for that very reason that, as far as they are concerned, I respect them more. Morality is upheld only by our own hearts. We suffer no inconvenience when we cause they pain, and yet the pain is terrible. A dagger blow is punished by the law but the rending of a sensitive heart is only the subject of a joke.” (389).
For the past two hundred years, Corinne’s suffering has seared the overlooked anguish of gifted women into the memory of de Stael’s readers. Returning to Mary Shelley’s criticisms of Corinne’s perceived defeat, the Christ-figure is again useful. The resurrection announced triumph over the torment of the cross, and each new reader breathes life into Corinne, resurrecting the impact of her brave effort to accept the inheritance her maker imposed.
Shortly after Corinne covertly returns Oswald’s ring and is nursed back to health by Count d’Erfeuil, we are told that “She felt like someone condemned to death” (347). She asks the Count to tell Lucile’s mother that she will not accept a significant inheritance that became Lady Edgermond’s bargaining chip in bringing about Oswald’s marriage to Lucile. Although she is independently wealthy, Corinne rejects this windfall as a rejection of the source, Lady Edgermnd, and a condemnation of the way the money has been used as a wedge between Oswald and her.
Later in the same book, in a woods on the banks of the Arno en route to Florence, Corinne offers the following prayer: “Oh God, why have you chosen me to bear this pain? May not I, like your divine son, also ask that this cup should pass from me?” (352). This allusion figures Corinne as a female Christ figure, accepting the spiritual penalty for all women who sacrifice their gifts and ambitions for the sake of love. Jesus prays the evening before his crucifixion at the Mount of Olives. While his omniscience fully recognizes the totality of the suffering to come, his human nature also begs for any alternative to the Father’s plan of requiring his son to bear the inheritance of sin for all people. Here Corinne is cognizant of the anguish and suffering that will compose the remainder of her life, but is reluctantly accepting of her role. I can’t help but wonder if de Stael here takes on the role of almighty God, crucifying her blameless heroine as an atonement for the genius sacrificed by generations of domesticated women. Corinne does not acknowledge a concrete God, but she certainly acknowledges the power of the author and the weight of allusion. Here she is praying to de Stael herself, asking, as did Christ, if any alternative might exist before this path of pain begins in earnest. In this context, Corinne’s behavior in the final sections of the novel might be re-read as a sort of feminine Messiah rather than the self-indulgent emo queen she might otherwise seem to the contemporary reader. Corinne has the power to escape the hold of her affection for Oswald, but accepts that misery because that is the service demanded by her author for a cause beyond self.
This reading might be supported by the conversation Corinne has with Prince Castel-Forte near the conclusion of the novel, when he outlines in stark detail the sins men commit against women:
“The wrong you may do a woman may not hurt you in the eyes of the world. The fragile idols adored today may be smashed tomorrow without being defended by anyone, and it is for that very reason that, as far as they are concerned, I respect them more. Morality is upheld only by our own hearts. We suffer no inconvenience when we cause they pain, and yet the pain is terrible. A dagger blow is punished by the law but the rending of a sensitive heart is only the subject of a joke.” (389).
For the past two hundred years, Corinne’s suffering has seared the overlooked anguish of gifted women into the memory of de Stael’s readers. Returning to Mary Shelley’s criticisms of Corinne’s perceived defeat, the Christ-figure is again useful. The resurrection announced triumph over the torment of the cross, and each new reader breathes life into Corinne, resurrecting the impact of her brave effort to accept the inheritance her maker imposed.